Istanbul's Fener patriarchate plans Lithuania branch against Moscow

Fener Greek Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew, based in Istanbul, visited Vilnius on Tuesday for talks with the Baltic country's prime minister. Bartholomew said he would work with Lithuanian authorities to establish a new branch in Lithuania to ensure that believers are no longer under the sole supervision of Moscow.

In 2019, Patriarch Bartholomew infuriated Moscow by recognizing the newly established Orthodox Church of Ukraine as Ukraine's official branch. Previously the Ukrainian Church had fallen under the authority of the Moscow Patriarchate.

"Today, a new perspective opens before us along with the possibility to work together for the establishment of (a branch) of (Patriarchate) in Lithuania," Bartholomew told reporters in Vilnius after meeting Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte. "The (Patriarchate) sacrificially offers itself to the service of the Orthodox faithful in Lithuania ... This is an exceptional honor for us," he added.

The Russian Orthodox Church had no immediate comment.

Simonyte said some of her country's Orthodox believers, including Ukrainian and Belarusian refugees, objected to the current status of the Church there as a unit of the Russian Orthodox Church. "It is natural and human that, as Russia began its full-scale aggression in Ukraine with the open and active support of the Moscow Patriarch Kirill, some Lithuanian Orthodox can no longer in good conscience remain part of the Moscow Patriarchy," said Simonyte. Kirill has been a staunch supporter of what Moscow calls a "special military operation" in Ukraine. Long before the conflict, two patriarchates sought to reconcile their differences at a meeting in Istanbul. Still, the talks failed to yield results for Moscow as the Istanbul patriarchate went on to recognize the Ukraine church.

Fener Greek Patriarchate is considered "first among equals" in the Orthodox world, but the Russian Church has the most significant number of Orthodox believers, some 100 million out of 260 million worldwide. Orthodoxy in Lithuania dates back to the 13th century, Bartholomew said when it fell under the ultimate supervision of Constantinople (present-day Istanbul), then the capital of the Byzantine Empire. As of 2021, there were about 100,000 Orthodox believers in mainly Roman Catholic Lithuania, with a total population of 2.7 million. The Patriarchate, in its self-appointed ecumenical status, has been based in Istanbul since the time of the Byzantine Empire, which collapsed after the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople. It has direct authority to assign and dismiss prelates in churches in several countries, from New Zealand to Panama. The Patriarchate has a small congregation in Istanbul, but many of its followers live abroad, mainly in the U.S.